Home | Joscelyn Godwin's Writings

“Boethius’ Three Musicians.” Studies in Comparative Religion 4 (1970): 246-50. A first attempt to express a “spiritual” attitude to music, written after a year’s immersion in the Traditionalist (also called the Perennialist) school. More info / full text
“Spiritual Currents in Music.” Studies in Comparative Religion 5 (1971): 110-25. A bold survey of the course of Western music, from a semi-Traditionalist point of view. More info / full text.
“The Renaissance Flute.” The Consort 28 (1972): 70-81. A short history of the instrument and its uses, accompanied by comparative fingering charts. More info / full text “The Survival of the Theorbo Principle.” Journal of the Lute Society of America 6 (1973): 4-16. A morphological study of some plucked stringed instruments outside the evolutionary mainstream. More info / full text
“Robert Fludd on the Lute and Pandora.” Lute Society Journal 15 (1973): 11-19. A critical presentation of what Fludd knew and depicted in his treatise on the macrocosm of 1618. More info / full text
“Robert Fludd’s Symbolic Recorder.” American Recorder 14/1 (1973): 17. Fludd’s ingenious use of the recorder as a symbol of the cosmos. More info / full text“Eccentric Forms of the Guitar.” Journal of the Lute Society of America 7 (1974): 90-102. A companion piece to no. 7, showing even more bizarre attempts to “improve” the guitar. More info / full text
“Instruments in Robert Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi...historia.” Galpin Society Journal 26 (1973): 2-14. A treatment of the remaining instruments pictured in Fludd’s work, real and imaginary. More info / full text“
“The Survival of the Theorbo Principle.” Journal of the Lute Society of America 6 (1973): 4-16. A morphological study of some plucked stringed instruments outside the evolutionary mainstream.
“Eccentric Forms of the Guitar.” Journal of the Lute Society of America 7 (1974): 90-102. A companion piece to no. 7, showing even more bizarre attempts to “improve” the guitar.
"Early Mendelssohn and Late Beethoven.” Music and Letters 55 (1974): 272-85. The young Mendelssohn was one of the first to appreciate Beethoven’s late works and to show clear evidence of their influence on his own music. More info / full text
“Playing from Original Notation.” Early Music 2 (1974): 15-19. A challenge to those aspiring to “authenticity” in early music to go a stage further. More info / full text
“Quest and Protest in Popular Songs.” The Golden Blade 26 (1974): 96-106. An essay on trends in popular music, especially the Incredible String Band, for an Anthroposophical journal. More info / full text
“Where is Music Going?” The Golden Blade 27 (1975): 122-36. A continuation of the survey in no. 2, but now from a more Steinerian perspective. More info / full text
“Mains divers acors: some instrument collections of the Ars Nova.” Early Music 5 (1977): 148-59. On a list in Machaut, carvings in Beverley Minster, and a monumental brass in Schwerin, analyzed to avoid the facile conclusions often drawn from iconographic sources. More info / full text
“Layers of Meaning in the Magic Flute.” Musical Quarterly 65 (1979): 471-92. A largely Jungian approach, influenced by Robert Donington’s book on Wagner’s Ring cycle and by more esoteric readings. More info / full text
“The Revival of Speculative Music.” Musical Quarterly 67 (1982): 373-86. German translation in Musiktherapeutische Umschau 7 (1986): 25-41. Dutch translation in Harmonisch labyrint (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007): 149-166. Spanish translation in La cadena aurea de Orfeo. El resurgimiento de la musica especulativa, tr. Carlos Varona Narvion (Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2009). On some modern Pythagorean and esoteric theorists, especially Hans Kayser, Marius Schneider, and the Anthroposophists. More info / full text
“Tolkien and the Primordial Tradition.” Temenos 3 (1983): 27-37. An approach to The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion from an esoteric perspective. More info / full text
“The Rosicrucian Event in Perspective.” Journal of Rosicrucian Studies 1 (1983): 18-22. A counterweight to over-enthusiastic and literal readings of the original treatises. More info / full text
“Pythagoreans, Today?” Homage To Pythagoras: Lindisfarne Letter 14 (1983): 135-42. The curtain-raiser to a conference on Pythagoras that united scholarship with enthusiasm. More info / full text
“The Golden Chain of Orpheus: a Survey of Musical Esotericism in the West.” Temenos 4 (1984): 7-25; 5 (1984): 211-239. Reprinted in Sudhamahi Regunathan, Song of the Spirit... the World of Sacred Music (Delhi: Tibet House, 2000): 71-92. Spanish translation in La cadena aurea de Orfeo. El resurgimiento de la musica especulativa, tr. Carlos Varona Narvion (Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 2009). A two-part article, drawing on the collection of texts that would be published as Music, Mysticism, and Magic and Harmony of the Spheres. More info / full text part 1 / full text part 2
“Musical Alchemy: the Work of Composer and Listener.” Temenos 6 (1985): 57-75. A pre-publication version of a chapter in Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, with some differences. More info / full text
“Hearing Secret Harmonies.” The American Theosophist 73 (1985): 182-95. Another pre-publication extract from Harmonies of Heaven and Earth. More info / full text
“A Background for Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1617).” Hermetic Journal 29 (1985): 5-10. This accompanied my edition and recording of Maier’s fifty fugues and their accompanying emblems and epigrams. More info / full text
“Priests, Professors, & Gurus.” Gnosis 2 (1986): 35-8. A cynical look at Academe, read in 1984 at the American Academy of Religion’s conference. More info / full text
“Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the Agarthian Connection.” Hermetic Journal 32 (1986): 24-34; 33 (1986): 31-38. A two-part article on the mythomaniacal origin of the underground kingdom of Agarttha. More info / full text part 1 / full text part 2
Foreword to The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, ed. D. Fideler and K.S. Guthrie (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1987), 11-14. Written for the first book published by David Fideler’s Phanes Press. More info / full text
“Mystery Religions.” Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York: Scribners, 1987), vol. 10, 1-5. Beside the obvious examples from the classical world, this treated analogous movements within Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. More info / full text
“La genèse de l’Archéomètre de Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.” L’Initiation (Paris), no.2 of 1988: 60-71; no.4 of 1988: 153-66. (In French) More info / full text part 1 / full text part 2
27A. Condensed version in English: “The Creation of a Universal System: Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and his Archeometer.” Alexandria 1 (1991): 229-49. Based on the Sorbonne archive, this shows the distinct stages by which Saint-Yves invented (or psychically received) the universal system of the Archeometer. More info / full text
“Facing the Traditionalists: an Approach to René Guénon and his Successors.” Gnosis 7 (1988): 23-27. Reprinted in The Inner West, ed. Jay Kinney (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2004), 292-303. On the Traditionalist school and its decline from universal metaphysics to sectarian religions. More info / full text
“H.P.B., Dorjeff, and the Mongolian Connection.” Theosophical History (London) 2/7 (1988): 253-60. A commentary on a curious episode related in Paul Brunton’s posthumous Notebooks, identifying Dorjeff as “Koot Hoomi.” More info / full text
Foreword to D. P. Walker, La Magie Spirituelle et Angélique de Ficin à Campanella (Paris: Albin Michel, 1988), 11-14. (In French) Introducing the foundational work of postwar studies of esotericism from the Warburg Institute. More info / full text
Foreword to Iamblichus, The Exhortation to Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1988), 7-9. Introducing Thomas Moore Johnson, the 19th-century Midwestern philosopher who published this Neoplatonic work. More info / full text
“Kircher and the Occult.” In Athanasius Kircher und seine Beziehungen zur gelehrten Europa seiner Zeit (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1988), 17-36 and plates. In English. The conclusion is that Kircher was no occultist, but a practitioner of what he called “natural magic.” More info / full text
"Prelude to a Fugue. Reflections on Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, Opus 133." Temenos 9 (1989): 69-77. An attempt to make sense of this difficult work for the non-specialist listener. More info / full text
The Beginnings of Theosophy in France [40-page monograph]. London: Theosophical History Centre, 1989. Separate publication, not included here. More info / full text
“The Hidden Hand.” Part I: “The Provocation of the Hydesville Phenomena.” Theosophical History III/2 (1990): 35-43. Part II: “The Brotherhood of Light.” Theosophical History III/3 (1990): 66-76. Part III: “The Parting of East and West.” Theosophical History III/4 (1990): 107-17. Part IV: “The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.” Theosophical History III/5 (1991): 137-48. An investigation into the Theosophical Society’s notorious rival and into conspiratorial rumors about spiritualist and Theosophical origins, based on archives and analyses of doctrines. Parts were included in The Theosophical Enlightenment, the edition of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor’s papers, and in Upstate Cauldron. More info / full text Part I / full text Part II / full text Part III / full text Part IV
“Hargrave Jennings.” Hermetic Journal 1991: 49-77. An investigation of the “Rosicrucian” pretender and his works. The Theosophical Enlightenment contains a much abbreviated version. More info / full text / abbreviated version
"Opera and the Amorous Initiation." Temenos 12 (1991): 129-140. An approach to opera in general as a means of exoteric initiation into the mysteries of sexual love. More info / full text
“Schwaller de Lubicz, les Veilleurs et la connexion nazie.” Politica Hermetica 5 (1991): 101-108. More info / full text
Foreword to Basarab Nicolescu, Science, Meaning, and Evolution (NY: Parabola Books, 1991), 1-4. Introducing a book that reconciles Jacob Boehme’s theosophy with modern physics. More info / full text
“The Lessons of History.” The Cerealogist 6 (1992): 14-15. An attempt to bring a balanced attitude and a historical approach to the crop-circle phenomenon. More info / full text
40A. “Queen Victoria and the Crystal. The Occult Observer II/2 (Autumn 1992): 27-28. On a claim in William Hockley’s diaries that, through crystal-gazing, occult contact had been made with the Queen. More info / full text
“A Behemist Circle in Victorian England.” The Hermetic Journal 1992: 48-71. Another extended investigation of material summarized in The Theosophical Enlightenment, on James Pierpont Greaves and the Penny and Attwood families. More info / full text
“Speculative Music: the Numbers behind the Notes.” In A Compendium of Contemporary Musical Thought (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), vol. I, 246-61. Introduces some metaphysical and symbolic notions of musical structure to an academic audience. More info / full text
“Many Futures.” In Voices on the Threshold of Tomorrow, ed. George and Trisha Feuerstein (Wheaton: Quest Books, 1993), 34-36. Argues that not everyone is experiencing the same phase of the cosmic cycle. More info / full text
Foreword to Antoine Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), 13-19. Introducing Faivre’s study of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, and its repercussions. More info / full text
“Mentalism and the Cosmological Fallacy.” Alexandria 2 (1994): 195-204. Inspired by Paul Brunton’s works, this argues that all cosmological systems are of dubious value. More info / full text
Foreword to Paul Johnson, The Masks of the Masters (Albany,: SUNY Press, 1994), xv-xix. Johnson’s identification of the Theosophical Masters with historical people was a landmark in the history of Blavatsky’s movement. My support did not imply absolute belief, but welcomed a new approach. More info / full text
“Annals of the Invisible College.” These articles, commissioned by Ralph White for the short-lived journal of the New York Open Center, were expanded into the book The Golden Thread. More info
1. “The Hermetic Tradition.” Lapis 1 (1995): 39-41. Full text
2. “Zoroaster.” Lapis 2 (1996): 37-39. Full text
3. “Orpheus.” Lapis 3 (1996): 29-31. Full text
4. “Pythagoras.” Lapis 4 (1997): 41-43. Full text
5. “The Platonic Tradition.” Lapis 5 (1997): 31-33. Full text
6. “Roman Mysteries.” Lapis 6 (1998): 41-43. Full text
7. “Gnosis and Gnosticism.” Lapis 7 (1998): 39-41. Full text
8. “The Negative Theology.” Lapis 8 (1999): 59-61. Full text
9. “The Cathedrals.” Lapis 9 (1999): 51-53. Full text
10. “The Arts of the Imagination.” Lapis 10 (1999): 71-74. Full text
11. “New Gods.” Lapis 11 (2000): 63-65. Full text
12. "The Philosopher's Dilemma." Lapis 12 (2000): 47-50. Full text
13. "The Inward Way." Lapis 13 (2000): 55-58. Full text
14. "The Religion of Art." Lapis 14 (2001): 65-68. Full text
15. "Wise Men from the East." (Not published; revised version in The Golden Thread).
“Il tempo trasformato in spazio. Riflessioni sull’occhio, sull’orecchio e sulla circolarità del tempo.” In A. Mayr, A. Colimberti, and G. Montagano, eds., L’Ascolto del Tempo. Musiche inudibili e ambiente ritmico (Florence: MP x2 Editore, 1995), 49-58. (In Italian). An attempt to trace an archetypal pattern through various levels of musical time and perception. More info / full text
48A. "Time Turned into Space. Reflections on the Eye, the Ear, and the Circularity of Time. Journal of Musicological Research 30 (2017). Published online. Revised version of the preceding, in English. Full text
“Athanasius Kircher.” In James Hardin, ed., German Baroque Writers, 1580-1660 (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1996), 185-194. (Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 164.) An standard reference article, setting out the facts of Kircher’s life, writings, and influence. More info / full text
“The Case Against Reincarnation.” Gnosis 42 (1997): 39-42. Explains the position taken by René Guénon and other Traditionalists, without pretending to settle the matter one way or the other. More info / full text
50A. [With Mike Jay] “Licked by the Mother Tongue.” Fortean Times 97 (April, 1997): 29-32. On Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and the language and alphabet of Vattanian that he claimed to have received from a Hindu as the primordial script of humanity. More info / full text
“Taste, Snobbery, and Spiritual Discernment.” Contemporary Music Review 14/3-4 (1997): 47-53. A musical autobiography, seeking the reasons for my preferences and aversions. More info / full text
“Music and the Hermetic Tradition.” In Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed. R. van den Broeck and W. J. Hanegraaff (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), 183-96. Argues that the two cannot really meet, because each is a complete path in itself. More info / full text
“Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht and Gnosticism.” In Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed. R. van den Broeck and W. J. Hanegraaff (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), 347-58. A second paper given at a conference organized by the Ritman Library, pointing out that one of Stockhausen’s sources is the Urantia Book. More info / full text
“Sonnensymbolik und Polarsymbolik.” In Vorträge der 29. Arbeitstagung vom 24. Mai-28. Mai 1995 in Horn-Bad Meinberg (Lemgo: Arbeits- und Forschungskreis Walther Machalett), 34-41. (In German) A contribution to the annual conference of a group dedicated to prehistoric and regional studies, especially around the Externsteine. More info / full text
54A. “Polar and Solar Symbolism.” Rûna 3 (1998): 8-13. English language version of no. 54. More info / full text
"Airs and Angels." In Promenade Concerts Programme (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1998), 7-10. A commissioned article on the many pieces in the 1998 Prom season that incorporated angelic or demonic themes. More info / full text
"L'esoterismo evoliano visto dagli Stati Uniti." Studi Evoliani 1998 (1999): 19-25. (In Italian) A survey of how Evola has been received in the USA, written for a centenary conference in Milan. More info / full text
“The Deepest of the Rosicrucians. Michael Maier (1569-1622).” In The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, ed. Ralph White (Hudson: Lindisfarne Books, 1999), 101-23. An overview of the work of Michael Maier, first given as a paper on the Esoteric Quest to Prague in 1997. More info / full text
“Out of Arctica? Herman Wirth’s Theory of Human Origins.” Rûna 5 (1999): 2-7. A summary of the evidence for a prehistoric circumpolar culture as proposed in Der Aufgang der Menschheit. More info / full text
"Lady Caithness and Her Connection with Theosophy." Theosophical History VIII/4 (2000): 127-47. The first attempt at a complete survey of Lady Caithness’s activities, writings, convictions, and influence. More info / full text
"The Survival of the Personality, according to Modern Esoteric Teachings." In Ésotérisme, gnoses & imaginaire symbolique. Mélanges offerts à Antoine Faivre, ed. Richard Caron, Joscelyn Godwin, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 403-13. German translation in Gnostika 22 (2002): 26-38. For the Festschrift offered to Professor Faivre on his retirement. A provocative study of the many esoteric teachers who deny universal survival. More info / full text
"Evola, preistoria e teosofia." In Julius Evola, un pensiero per la fine del millennio (Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola, 2001), 37-49. (In Italian) On Evola’s surprising consensus with Blavatsky’s outline of prehistoric evolution a[nd root races. More info / full text
61A. “Traditionalist Prehistory and Its Theosophical Roots.” Unpublished English version, largely reproduced in no. 61. More info / full text
Foreword to Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 2002), vii-ix. On Evola’s pessimistic survey of European civilization after World War II. More info / full text
“From the Diary of a Poliphilic Tourist.” In Massimo Maggiari, ed., The Waters of Hermes 2 (2002): 15-19. Describes a tour of magical sites in northern Italy, in the spirit of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and of my Pagan Dream of the Renaissance. More info / full text
"Western Esoteric Tradition." In Religions of the World, ed. J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2002), vol. 4, 1414-18. Emphasizes the complementarity of esoteric with exoteric religions. More info / full text
"Julius Evola: A Philosopher for the Age of the Titans." Tyr 1 (2002): 127-42. Also published in German in Gnostika 62 (May 2018): 90-109. An effort to promote the study, but not necessarily the adoption, of Evola’s philosophy. See no. 97 for a revised and expanded version. More info / full text
"Herman Wirth on Folksong." Tyr 2 (2004): 263-83. A study of Wirth’s doctoral dissertation in musicology, which attributed the crucial developments of Western music, especially polyphony, not to church music but to folk music. More info / full text
Foreword to Felice Vinci, The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2005), ix-xiii. Vinci argues that the Iliad and Odyssey are translations of voyages that originally happened in the Baltic. I welcomed the novelty of the idea. More info / full text
“Esotericism without Religion: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.” Tyr 3 (2006): 155-71. Also in Esotericism, Art, and Imagination, ed. Arthur Versluis et al. (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2008), 185-201. Complementing my early essay on Tolkien (no. 16), this shows that Pullman’s trilogy is full of echoes of esoteric doctrines, especially Gnostic, whether intentional or not. More info / full text
Introduction to Michael Maier, La fuga de Atalanta (Girona: Ediciones Atalanta, 2007), 11-62. (In Spanish) A long introduction, amplifying my early article (no. 22) and the introduction in my edition of Atalanta Fugiens. More info / full text
69A. Original English text of no. 69. More info / full text
"Kepler e Kircher sull'Armonia delle Sfere." In Forme e correnti dell'esoterismo occidentale, ed. Alessandro Grossato (Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 2008), 145-64. (In Italian) Explains the basis of Kepler’s and Kircher’s theory of cosmic harmony, concluding that Kircher was closer to scientific truth. More info / full text
70A. “Kepler and Kircher on the Harmony of the Spheres.” Original English text of no. 70.
“The Wonder Years.” Art & Antiques (2008): 60-70. On the “Kunst- und -Wunderkammer” of the Renaissance period, especially the collection of Schloss Ambras. More info / full text
“Agarttha: Taking the Lid off the Underground Kingdom.” New Dawn 109 (2008): 59-61. A promotional article for The Kingdom of Agarttha, the first English translation of Saint-Yves d’Alveydre’s Mission de l’Inde. More info / full text
“Twisting the Threads.” New Dawn Special Issue no. 5 (2008): 67-70. Promotional article for The Golden Thread, the book that amplifies and annotates the essays written for Lapis (no. 47). More info / full text
“Teosofia e oltre” in Il Maestro della Tradizione. Dialoghi su Julius Evola, ed. Marco Iacona (Naples: Controcorrente, 2008), 73-80. (In Italian; English version on Hermetic.com) On Evola’s debt to the Theosophical Society. More info / full text
“Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of Marvels." New Dawn Special Issue no. 9 (2009): 9-14. Promotional article for Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. More info / full text
“Curious Coincidences: The Parallel Lives of Fabre d’Olivet and J. F. H. von Dalberg.” Published online, 2009, in Stanford University’s Super-Enlightenment Project. A tabulation of the lives, interests, writings, talents, and outlooks of these two contemporaries, showing how remarkably they correspond. More info / full text
Introduction to Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, The Kingdom of Agarttha, tr. Jon E. Graham (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2009), 1-27. A final statement of my findings and views on the mythical kingdom invented or imagined by Saint-Yves. More info / full text
"John Michell (1933-2009)." Temenos Academy Review, 12 (2009): 250-253. Reprinted as "Recipient of Revelation" in Michellany: A John Michell Reader (London: Michellany Editions, 2010), 91-94. A tribute to my friend, partly based on the introduction to my selection of his essays for The Oldie magazine, Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist. More info / full text
"Western New York's Theosophical Enlightener." In Claude Bragdon and the Beautiful Necessity, ed. Eugenia Victoria Ellis and Andrea Reithmayr (Rochester, NY: Cary Graphic Arts press/Rochester Institute of Technology, 2010), 21-24. On the esoteric side of the architect, designer, and essayist Claude Bragdon, for a volume of essays accompanying an exhibition. More info / full text
"Is There a Keynote of Nature?" In Esotericism, Religion, and Nature, ed. Arthur Versluis, Claire Fanger, Lee, Irwin, Melinda Phillips (East Lansing: Association for the Study of Esotericism, distributed by Michigan State U.P., 2010), 53-71. A dense study of the contention by Blavatsky and others that nature favors the note F, concluding that it is groundless. More info / full text
“The Harmony of the Spheres.” In program book for Agostino Steffani's Niobe, Regina di Tebe (London: Royal Opera House, 2010), 29-33. A background for this opera, which features the myth of Amphion and his magical music. More info / full text
“Athanasius Kircher’s Invention of the Hieroglyphic Tradition.” In Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism, ed. Andreas B. Kilcher (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 427-47. A critical examination of how Kircher came to believe that he could decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. More info / full text
Foreword to Gerhard Hallstadt, Blutleuchte (Jacksonville, Or.: Ajna, 2010), i-v. Also in French edition, Camion Noir, 2012. Introducing his 29 self-produced bilingual booklets, now collected in this volume, and somewhat explaining the principles behind them. More info / full text
The Spirit House, or Brown's Free Hall, in Georgetown, New York [48-page monograph]. Hamilton, NY: The Upstate Institute at Colgate University, 2011. Separate publication, not included here. More info
Foreword to John Fletcher, A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, 'Germanus Incredibilis,’ (Leiden: Brill, 2011), xvii-xx. Introducing a monumental study of Kircher’s correspondence, published after Fletcher’s untimely death. More info / full text
Foreword to Alain Daniélou, Mientras los dioses juegan (Girona: Ediciones Atalanta, 2011), 11-18. (In Spanish) Introducing Daniélou’s book on his polytheist theology and apocalyptic predictions. More info / full text
86A. “While the Gods Play.” Original English of no. 86. More info / full text
“Politica Romana pro and contra Julius Evola.” In Esotericism, Religions, and Politics, ed. Arthur Versluis, Lee Irwin, Melinda Phillips (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2012), 41-58. On the ambivalent treatment of Evola in the esoteric journal founded by Piero Fenili. More info / full text
“Blavatsky and the First Generation of Theosophy.” In Handbook of the Theosophical Current, ed. O. Hammer & M. Rothstein (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 15-31. An outline of how the Theosophical movement arose, before Blavatsky left for India. More info / full text
"When Does the Kali Yuga End?" New Dawn 138 (May-June 2013): 63-68. A number of dates have been suggested. This explains the arguments behind each one, leaving the reader to evaluate them. More info / full text
"George Barton Cutten and American Coin Silver." Silver Studies 31 (2014): 84-98. Cutten was President of Colgate University, 1922-42, and an authority on American table silver. This article draws on his archives in the university library. More info / full text
"Understanding the Traditionalists." New Dawn 147 (Nov.-Dec. 2014): 63-69. A revision of the more combative article of 1988 (no. 28), explaining both gratitude and fundamental dissent from the Perennialist current. More info / full text
"A Walk through the Speculative Music Section." In Octagon: The Quest for Wholeness, ed. H. T. Hakl (Gaggenau: Scientia Nova, 2016), 113-18. A review of the rich holdings of Hans Thomas Hakl’s library, as they concern music and harmonic theory. More info / full text
“Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Tradition.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Mysticism and Western Esotericism, ed. Glenn Alexander Magee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 13-25. A survey of Pythagoras’s myths and achievements, his followers in antiquity, and their repercussions, especially in the 20th century. More info / full text
"Esoteric Theories of Color." In Lux in Tenebris: The Visual and the Symbolic in Western Esotericism, ed. Peter J. Forshaw (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 447-76. A classification of the various ways that esotericists have included color within their systems, and their arguments for doing so. More info / full text
"Astral Ascent in the Occult Revival." In Culture and Cosmos: Special Double Issue on Celestial Magic 19/1-2 (2015): 189-206. Published 2017. On the historical continuity of the Hermetic idea that the soul ascends through the planetary spheres, as it has adapted to the times. More info / full text
"Antarctica in Myth, Fantasy & Reality." New Dawn, Special Issue 11/1 (2017): 45-55. A version of a chapter from my book Arktos, prompted by rumors of strange activities in the continent, and including a translation from a later work of Miguel Serrano. More info / full text
"Who Was Julius Evola, Really?" New Dawn 162 (May-June 2017): 61-67. A revision of a previous article (no. 65), explaining why Evola has much to offer the serious seeker, irrespective of one’s political or ethical convictions. More info / full text
"A Ruin Revived.” Journal of the Chenango County Historical Society 7 (Summer 2018): 43-50. An illustrated description of how I excavated a ruined nineteenth-century cottage on my property in Upstate New York. More info / full text
"Unmasking the Beaver Meadow Gang." Journal of the Chenango County Historical Society 7 (Summer 2018): 51-59. Results of archival research into the former owner of the excavated cottage, his life and activities that led to two sentences in Auburn Prison. More info / full text
"Alain Daniélou and the Gods in the Age of Conflict." Tyr 5 (2018): 54-88. A presentation of the multiply talented ethnomusicologist, polytheist, traditionalist, and sexual revolutionary. More info / full text
"Music as Esoteric Practice." Temenos Academy Review 21 (2018): 160-81. How composition, performance, and especially listening to music can contribute to or even constitute an esoteric path. Resumes the theme of my first article (no. 1). More info / full text
"Queen Anne's Gift of Silver to the Onondaga Indian Chapel." Silver Studies 34 (2018): 22-38. The history of the 17th-century silver communion service now held by St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Albany, NY, based on archival and material research. More info / full text
"Music and Gnosis." In The Gnostic World, ed. Garry Trompf et al. (London: Routledge, 2019), 688-92. On music as a vehicle for higher knowledge. More info / full text
"Magic for Grown-ups: the Work of the Ur Group." New Dawn 172 (Jan.-Feb. 2019): 65-69. Promotional article for my translation of the second volume of the group’s essays, emphasizing its superiority to other magical pretensions. More info / full text
"Music? What Does That Have to Do with Esotericism?” In Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism, ed. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter J. Forshaw, Marco Pasi (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 113-19. A contribution to a volume issued by the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism and intended to educate a wider public about its activities and subject matter. More info / full text
"Meeting a Philosopher" In The Art and Science of Initiation, ed. Jedediah French and Angel Millar (London: Lewis Masonic, 2020), 147-56. A memoir of Anthony Damiani, founder of Wisdom's Goldenrod, from the point of view of my friendship with him from 1968-1984. More info / full text
"The Mahatma Letters." In Imagining the East: The Early Theosophical Society, ed. Tim Rudboeg and Erik Sand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 133-55. An objective analysis of these foundational documents of the Theosophical Society, based on study of the originals in the British Library. More info / full text
“Edward and Stephanie Godwin’s Book Illustrations.” Studies in Illustration 74 (Spring 2020): 26-35. An illustrated article with a complete bibliography of my parents’ book illustrations from 1948-1954. More info / full text
“Music and Its Powers in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499).” Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes / Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies 39 (2020 – 2021): 263-76. On the 50 or more instances of music in Colonna’s epic novel, and how some of them seem to anticipate music of a century later. More info / full text
“Beyond the Cosmic Ladder: The Ultimate State, According to Julius Evola and Paul Brunton.” Theosophical History XX/3 (2020): 261-78. On the biographical coincidences, close agreements, and ultimate dissents of these two philosophers. More info / full text
"KRUR: Last Testament of the UR Group." New Dawn 189 (Nov.-Dec. 2021): 61-64. A promotional article for the English translation of the third and final volume of the UR Group's writings.
"The Interventions of Marco Pallis." Temenos Academy Review 25 (2022): 113-23. On Pallis' timely support of the early music movement and of the propagation of Buddhism and the perennial wisdom.
"A Search for Paul Brunton." A short account of Brunton's life and work, with biographical information drawn from his archive at Cornell University. New Dawn 191 (March-April 2022): 59-62.
"Claude Bragdon's Images of the Seven Degrees of the Scale." In Explorations in Music and Esotericism, ed. Marjorie Roth and Leonard George (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2023): 64-77. An analysis of the seven illustrations in Bragdon's The New Image, and of his theories of the relations of music, geometry, and color.
"Sacred and Profane in Music Therapy." Religions 14 (2023). Special Issue: Musicology of Religion: Selected Papers on Religion and Music. An analysis of the various metaphysical assumptions that have informed music therapy, from antiquity to the present.